Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality: Infantile Sexuality, Freud (1905)
Book II: Infantile Sexuality
Introduction
People mistakenly believe that sexual instincts do not exist until puberty. This mistaken belief is so widespread because people have been taught that it is not proper to talk about such matters and also because, for psychological reasons, we tend to forget our early years. This amnesia does not make sense biologically, as young children should have the capacity for creating such memories. This childhood amnesia is similar to the amnesia neurotics exhibited, meaning that these early sexual experiences are not forgotten but repressed.
When the child is 3-4 we can observe his sexual behaviors. It is during this period that the child builds up “the mental forces which are later to impede the course of the sexual instinct and, like dams, restrict its flow—disgust, feelings of shame and the claims of aesthetic and moral ideals.” The child’s sexual instincts remain during latency but become sublimated
Sexual Manifestations in Children
Different body parts can “acquire the same susceptibility to stimulation as is possessed by the genitals and can become an erotogenic zone.”
(1) Thumb-sucking. Thumb-sucking is like sex, involving “complete absorption of the attention” which leads “either to sleep or even to a motor reaction in the nature of an orgasm. It is not infrequently combined with rubbing some sensitive part of the body such as the breast or the external genitalia.” He continues: “No one who has seen a baby sinking back satiated from the breast and falling asleep with flushed cheeks and a blissful smile can escape the reflection that this picture persists as a prototype of the expression of sexual satisfaction in later life.”
Thumb-sucking can be understood as a search for a previously experienced pleasure. In nursing, the infant’s lips “behave like an erotogenic zone,” the stimulation of “the warm flow of milk” causing pleasure. Initially, the pleasure is associated with the satisfaction of being nourished, which is essential to self-preservation. Over time, the infant comes to experience pleasure even when he is not being nourished.
(2) Anal Zone. The erotogenic significance of the anus is great for the infant. Children will sometimes hold back their stool until “its accumulation brings about violent muscular contractions and, as it passes through the anus, is able to produce powerful stimulation of the mucous membrane. In so doing it must no doubt cause not only painful but also highly pleasurable sensations.
(3) Genital Zones. Three are three phases of infant masturbation: one taking place in early infancy, one about the fourth year, and the third around puberty. Early on we can observe the child achieving satisfaction by rubbing himself with his hand or bringing his thighs together. The second phase, beginning around four, might continue until the child suppresses it or it may continue.
Seduction
Seduction “treats a child as a sexual object prematurely and teaches him, in highly emotional circumstances, how to obtain satisfaction from his genital zones, a satisfaction which he is then usually obliged to repeat again and again by masturbation.” However, a child’s sexual life can also be activated by internal causes.
Sexual Research
Between the ages of three and five, children become curious about sex. The child wonders where babies come from, most concluded that “people get babies by eating some particular thing (as they do in fairy tales) and babies are born through the bowel like a discharge of faeces.” Both boys and girls often believe that women initially had penises but “lost it by castration.” If children see their parents having sex, they will conclude that sex is sadistic, “a sort of ill-treatment or act of subjugation.”
Introduction
People mistakenly believe that sexual instincts do not exist until puberty. This mistaken belief is so widespread because people have been taught that it is not proper to talk about such matters and also because, for psychological reasons, we tend to forget our early years. This amnesia does not make sense biologically, as young children should have the capacity for creating such memories. This childhood amnesia is similar to the amnesia neurotics exhibited, meaning that these early sexual experiences are not forgotten but repressed.
When the child is 3-4 we can observe his sexual behaviors. It is during this period that the child builds up “the mental forces which are later to impede the course of the sexual instinct and, like dams, restrict its flow—disgust, feelings of shame and the claims of aesthetic and moral ideals.” The child’s sexual instincts remain during latency but become sublimated
Sexual Manifestations in Children
Different body parts can “acquire the same susceptibility to stimulation as is possessed by the genitals and can become an erotogenic zone.”
(1) Thumb-sucking. Thumb-sucking is like sex, involving “complete absorption of the attention” which leads “either to sleep or even to a motor reaction in the nature of an orgasm. It is not infrequently combined with rubbing some sensitive part of the body such as the breast or the external genitalia.” He continues: “No one who has seen a baby sinking back satiated from the breast and falling asleep with flushed cheeks and a blissful smile can escape the reflection that this picture persists as a prototype of the expression of sexual satisfaction in later life.”
Thumb-sucking can be understood as a search for a previously experienced pleasure. In nursing, the infant’s lips “behave like an erotogenic zone,” the stimulation of “the warm flow of milk” causing pleasure. Initially, the pleasure is associated with the satisfaction of being nourished, which is essential to self-preservation. Over time, the infant comes to experience pleasure even when he is not being nourished.
(2) Anal Zone. The erotogenic significance of the anus is great for the infant. Children will sometimes hold back their stool until “its accumulation brings about violent muscular contractions and, as it passes through the anus, is able to produce powerful stimulation of the mucous membrane. In so doing it must no doubt cause not only painful but also highly pleasurable sensations.
(3) Genital Zones. Three are three phases of infant masturbation: one taking place in early infancy, one about the fourth year, and the third around puberty. Early on we can observe the child achieving satisfaction by rubbing himself with his hand or bringing his thighs together. The second phase, beginning around four, might continue until the child suppresses it or it may continue.
Seduction
Seduction “treats a child as a sexual object prematurely and teaches him, in highly emotional circumstances, how to obtain satisfaction from his genital zones, a satisfaction which he is then usually obliged to repeat again and again by masturbation.” However, a child’s sexual life can also be activated by internal causes.
Sexual Research
Between the ages of three and five, children become curious about sex. The child wonders where babies come from, most concluded that “people get babies by eating some particular thing (as they do in fairy tales) and babies are born through the bowel like a discharge of faeces.” Both boys and girls often believe that women initially had penises but “lost it by castration.” If children see their parents having sex, they will conclude that sex is sadistic, “a sort of ill-treatment or act of subjugation.”
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